Life’s a Reach

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Atlantic Ocean. Each one of those tiny dots in the photo above is a person with a life, a voice, loved ones, losses. Sunburns.

We are standing, you and I, in front of the “Beach Hut” at Smith Point County Park on the South Shore of Long Island. It is 2014, one of the more recent years in history. For much of my adult life, I have sat here internally convinced that I do not like “the beach.” I do not remember when I convinced myself of this. I do not remember an unpleasant beach incident that convinced me that I possessed this piece of self-knowledge about my … self.
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Hossein Ronaghi Freed on Bail

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Visibly weaker after a 38-day hunger strike, Iranian blogger Hossein Ronaghi was released on bail yesterday, May 4. According to the web site Journalism Is Not a Crime, the bail “300 million tomans (about $100,000) pending a review of his case.”

Since his return to prison in January, Iranian blogger Hossein Ronaghi’s health has deteriorated to the point that he was taken to outside clinics on at least two occasions, according to reports on Twitter, but he was not been admitted to a hospital because prosecutors (not doctors) have determined that his condition is not serious.

The blogger’s medical condition is serious: arrested in December 2009 and in and out of prisons since, one kidney has shut down and the other requires immediate attention.

(Below the fold is my post from March 30: “We are His Voice: Hossein Ronaghi.” I will post more as I learn it.)
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Today in History: May 5

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Today is Cinco de Mayo.

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New York City’s “Music Hall founded by Andrew Carnegie,” now known as Carnegie Hall, had its opening night 125 years ago tonight. Music was conducted by Walter Damrosch and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who conducted his “Marche Solennelle” (below the fold):
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